Kyle Lowry is excited to be joined on the Toronto Raptors by former teammate Rudy Gay.

Lowry and Gay played together with the Memphis Grizzlies before the former was traded to the Rockets.

"He’s a potential All-Star," said Lowry. "Every year he’s got that status where he can be an All-Star, he just never gets put into an all-star game."

Gay has struggled at times this season, but could be rejuvenated by the new situation with the Raptors.

"He’s excited, he’s looking forward to the opportunity," Lowry said. "He definitely knows the situation, he knows how people are going to be looking at him to becoming that player and I think he’s going to prove it. He’s going to be able to be the All-Star that he should always be."

"I'm just getting my confidence back, and when I get wide-open shots, I'm able to knock them down," said Ilyasova. "We've started playing better as a team, and we're sharing the ball offensively."

Skiles took Ilyasova out of the starting lineup in December.

"My concern (was) about the minutes," said Ilyasova. "When you come off the season I had last year, I didn't expect to play less than I did last year. That didn't motivate me well. It's really hard to play the way I was playing with Skiles. Whatever I did affected my minutes when I missed a couple of my first shots."

When Boylan took over, his first move was to reinsert Ilyasova into the starting lineup.

"When I came in, my job was to try to get him back to a good place," Boylan said. "The last several games, he's been looking really good, the Ersan of last year. So hopefully we can keep that going."

"There's teams interested I know that," Colangelo said. "I've got a handful of situations that people were monitoring this whole injury process. I'm not saying anything with any concrete nature that he's going to be traded but we're looking to make our basketball team better and I've pretty much told everybody: nobody on our team is untradeable based on some of the things we are looking to do and what our objectives are."

Colangelo expects Bargnani to return with a chip on his shoulder, which could stimulate trade talks.

"You're going to see, I think, a rejuvenated Andrea Bargnani when he comes back from the injury here in a few days," Colangelo explained. "He's got something to prove. Maybe he proves just enough to create a trade conversation.

"I will tell you that any interest in Andrea -- which there was quite a bit early on in this season -- went by the wayside when he got hurt. So that's just a natural part of the business when a guy's not playing you can't really discuss him."

With Chris Paul sidelined with a bruised right kneecap, Bledsoe is in charge of running the team’s offense.

"That's his personality a little bit," Clippers coach Vinny Del Negro said. "But he's also got to understand that guys need to hear him out there, whether it's offensively or defensively. He's working on it and it's a comfort level for him as well."

Bledsoe has started the eight games Paul has missed, with the team going 5-3 over that stretch.

Amar'e Stoudemire has accepted his role as the New York Knicks' sixth man.

"It's in my DNA: I'm just willing to do whatever it takes to win," Stoudemire said. "I've accomplished a lot in my career so far. The next thing to accomplish is to win a championship. Whatever that takes. Whatever role that I need to step into, I'm totally open to it."

Stoudemire has made a committed effort to score in the post.

"When he catches the ball down there, he's able to produce," Mike Woodson said. "That's going to be huge for us down the road."

Entering play Wednesday, the Knicks had outscored opponents by an average of 13.4 points per 48 minutes with Stoudemire, Carmelo Anthony and Tyson Chandler on the floor together.

"The more time that we get to play with one another, the more we learn about one another, the better the chemistry is," said Chandler.